Malaysian protesters shift from streets to stadium

SEAN YOONG, Associated Press

Malaysian opposition-backed activists agreed Tuesday to move a planned rally for electoral fairness to a stadium instead of marching through the streets.

The compromise helps reduce the chances of a clash between protesters and police, who recently detained about 200 people linked to the planned demonstration Saturday amid escalating political tensions.

The plan is spearheaded by independent activists who want an overhaul of electoral laws to ensure transparency in national polls widely expected by mid-2012. Some activists had earlier voiced hopes that as many as 100,000 people would march in Kuala Lumpur, making it Malaysia's biggest political rally in nearly four years.

Protest organizers met the country's constitutional monarch at the national palace Tuesday and announced they had accepted the government's proposal for demonstrators to gather in a stadium instead.

Prime Minister Najib Razak has insisted authorities won't allow a street demonstration because it could trigger chaos, but added that they would have no objections to a rally in a stadium. Authorities have also accused opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's three-party alliance of endorsing the protest to undermine the government.

"We will not hold it in the streets," Ambiga Sreenevasan, who heads a coalition of civic groups, said Tuesday after meeting with King Mizan Zainal Abidin.

The king had previously warned in a rare political statement that street demonstrations "bring more bad than good."

Fears of violence rose after police said earlier Tuesday they found crude firebombs and machetes hidden in packages with T-shirts linked to the rally near a Kuala Lumpur shopping mall. Activists have denied plotting any unrest.

The venue for the rally is likely to be a stadium in central Selangor state near Kuala Lumpur. Anwar's alliance wrested control of Selangor and several other Malaysian states in a 2008 general election, when Najib's National Front coalition suffered its worst results in decades of uninterrupted rule since independence from Britain in 1957.

The National Front's mandate expires in mid-2013, but many analysts believe elections will be held within a year following recent signs that public support for the opposition has weakened. The opposition has repeatedly accused the National Front of relying on fraud to preserve its grip on power.